Data networks are mostly empty and for good reason

If you think data networks run at full capacity, think again. Most run at three to five percent in an average week. In fact, corporate data networks in the US are lightly utilized, with much lower average use than the Internet backbones. But low utilization is not necessarily a problem. It may in fact be the most efficient solution in terms of total system cost. Given the nature of the beast, there may be no way around it; utilization will stay low as long as data networks must accommodate bursty transmissions, users concentrate traffic during regular business hours, and network administrators have to provide spare capacity for the rapid introduction of new services